Not permanently settled until the end of the 17th century, the islands were first landed on by the Portugese João Álvares Fagundes, and were made a French possession in 1536 by Jacques Cartier on behalf of the King of France. In 1670, during Jean Talon's tenure as Intendant of New France, a French officer annexed the islands when he found a dozen French fishermen camped there. A series of squabbles between the British and French on the islands started, with the British Royal Navy soon beginning to harass the French, pillaging their camps and ships, and by the early 1700s, the islands were again uninhabited, and were ceded to the British by the Treaty of Utrecht at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1713.
The French ceded their North American possessions with the Treaty of Paris at the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763, but Saint-Pierre and Miquelon were returned to France. The entire population of the colony was kicked out back to France in 1778 after the British attacked it due to France being allied with the Americans in The American Revolution, and the British landed in the territory in 1793 and tried to install British settlers there. The French then retaliated and sacked the colony in 1796, and the 1802 Treaty of Amiens returned the islands to France, but Britain reoccupied them next year when hostilities recommenced. The Treaty of Paris in 1814 gave them back to France again, though Britain soon occupied them yet again during the Hundred Days War.
France soon finally regained the territory for good, but by the time they did, it was uninhabited and the structures and buildings had been destroyed or fallen into disrepair, resulting in the resettling of the islands in 1816. However, by the start of World War I, the colony suffered severely as a result of unprofitable fisheries, the draft imposed on all male inhabitants of conscript age and the adoption of steam trawlers, and large numbers of its people emigrated to Nova Scotia and Quebec as a result. However, in the 1920s, smuggling became a prominent economic activity in the islands as a result of prohibition in the United States, with the territory being reported to have imported 1,815,271 US gallons (1,511,529 imperial gallons; 6,871,550 litres) of whisky from Canada in 12 months, most of it to be smuggled into the United States, though the end of prohibition in 1933 plunged the islands into an economic depression.
The local government pledged its allegiance to Vichy France in World War II, but despite opposition from Canada, Britain and the United States, Charles de Gaulle seized the territory, with the population endorsing the takeover by Free France in a referendum the following day. After the 1958 French constitutional referendum, the islands were given the option of becoming fully integrated with France, becoming a self-governing state within the French Community, or preserving the status of overseas territory, with them deciding to remain a territory.
The Saint-Pierrais/Miquelonnais flag
The French national anthem
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Government
- Devolved parliamentary dependency
- President: Emmanuel Macron
- Prefect: Christian Pouget
- President of the Territorial Council: Bernard Briand
Miscellaneous
- Capital and largest city: Saint-Pierre
- Population: 5,997
- Area: 242 sq km (93 sq mi)
- Currency: Euro (€) (EUR)
- ISO-3166-1 Code: PM
- Country calling code: 508
